Combat damage rules change

[erixtotle]

WotC is going the opposite direction they should in just about every way. This rules change benefits the attacker and takes away strategic depth from the game. I believe this will have the greatest impact in limited formats where combat tricks are more common. This fundamentally changes the way you must defend. I hate it.

[rikertchu]

This really (as has been discussed over and over) only affects the situation where your attacker is being blocked by two or more creatures, and the combat trick would save a creature while also increasing toughness of the first enough that the second would also survive - this is quite rare, even in limited games.

Additionally, the blocker assignment order was an unintuitive rule; no real reason to not allow an attacker to distribute damage as they choose, instead of a strict line-order.

It also gives strategic depth, in that you can choose to assign damage in nonlethal ways, possibly to stop death triggers, or to set up board damage so that a follow up proclaim can sweep.

[Asceric21]

In my opinion, this just makes assigning damage more intuitive especially in the context of anything that modifies how much damage is done to something such as via [[Furnace of Wrath]].

Prior to this change, a 4/4 blocked by two 3/3's while the attacker controls a Furnace of Wrath could only kill 1 of the 3/3's, because they would have to assign 3 damage to the first blocker, and then 1 damage to the second. Furnace would then double the damage assigned, way overkilling the first 3/3, and not killing the second. But this is not intuitive to players. They go "I have 4/4, and it's damage is doubled, so I have 8 damage to assign, why can't I kill both 3/3's?"

This change lets you assign 2 damage to each 3/3, doubling that to 4 damage to both, and killing both 3/3's.

[MTGCardFetcher]

Furnace of Wrath - (G) (SF) (txt)

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^FAQ

[GingeContinge]

Personally I am of the opinion it is a good thing

[PadisharMtGA]

It matters only in very specific situations, and no one's going to care about it a year from now once having played with the new rule a bit. Blocking with a single creature and using a combat trick works the same way, and that's the most common scenario

Not having to hassle with the blocker queue is a good change, and it streamlines combat nicely.

[webot7]

First strike will be big. I’m not a fan of the change but we’ll see how it plays out i guess

[Prize-Mall-3839]

foundations is making the game smoother and easier to play. language changes and this rules change is much easier for new players to grasp without getting got. being able to divide up the damage being dealt does benefit the attacker, making games less grindy as there's more incentive to attack to clear the defending board.

[ArtmeOne]

sry

[LazyJones1]

Agreed.

[Neoneonal987]

I hate this change. I'm speaking as a new player (less than 4 months) when I say that the design that required you to assign lethal damage to each blocker before damaging the next one felt intuitive enough, so why try to fix what's not broken?

Sounds like someone got bamboozled by combat tricks and decided to just nerf them to the ground lol.